The invention is concerned with improvements in or relating to the handling of textile yarn, particularly the control of humidity in the conditioning of yarns during a textile manufacturing process, for example in respect of the reduction or regulation of the production of loose fly or lint from the yarn.
In the supply of yarn to a textile machine it is customary, for example to mount a plurality of yarn bobbins upon support members in a creel arrangement, yarn drawn off from the bobbins travelling through yarn guides, feed devices, tensioners, stop motions and the like before it is used by the textile machine.
During this travel, loose fibres are inclined to fall away from the main fibres of the yarn, for instance when they pass over contact points such as the yarn guides and the like mentioned above. These loose fibres are known as `lint` or `fly`.
Several problems are caused by lint. For example, lint often accumulates in a yarn guide and tends to block the passage. This may break the yarn either at a position remote from the operational zone of the machine when the yarn detection system will stop the machine, or on the zone itself when a fault in the fabric may be caused. Occasionally, lumps of lint may be taken into the fabric, which will produce faulty fabric, and also may cause damage to the fabric-producing elements (such as needle in a knitting machine). Lint floating in the atmosphere in a work room is a health hazard, and any lint which settles in the work room, particularly in the roof structure, may be a fire hazard. Not least of the problems caused is the risk that lint from a coloured yarn may contaminate adjacent yarn or fabric and result in sub-standard goods.
Many attempts have been made to overcome some of the foregoing problems, mainly consisting of systems to blow the lint away from the contact point in the yarn path which may assist in solving the difficulties associated with the fabric and the machine but does nothing for the hazard problems and indeed may even worsen them.
In U.K. Pat. No. 2087543 there is described enclosure means for the control of loose lint or fly released by textile yarns during travel between stations in a textile manufacturing process, comprising a housing, divided into a plurality of interconnected compartments, at least one of which is traversed by a yarn during its travel, means to circulate air in a continuous path through the compartments, a partition being provided between two adjacent compartments comprising a filter screen capable of trapping fly or lint carried by air passing therethrough.
In most textile manufacturing processes, the yarn travel is rapid and therefore because of the shortness of the time during which the yarn is present in the compartments, it is advantageous under many circumstances to establish a high level of humidity within the housing. The effect of this has been to reduce to a minimum the effect of static electricity upon the yarn thus removing a major contributory cause of the lint problem. At the same time, the moisture is partially absorbed into the cell structure of the yarn fibres in a manner similar to that of the conditioning of yarn in storage cabinets, but in a fraction of the time. Thus the yarn is strengthened as compared with yarn taken from creels in a conventional arrangement, and the performance of the knitting process is thus improved.